French President Emmanuel Macron’s wife, Brigitte, shoved her husband in the face as the couple touched down in Hanoi, Vietnam, for a state visit. 

The moment came as the couple was trying to walk down from the plane, when it was opened, after arriving in Vietnam to begin a Southeast Asian tour on Sunday. 

His wife’s arms emerged from the left of the open doorway of the plane as she placed both hands on Mr Macron’s face and gave it a shove, according to a report by CBS on Monday. 

The French resident appeared startled but quickly recovered and turned to wave through the plane’s open door. 

Mrs Brigitte remained concealed by the aircraft’s body, making it impossible to see her facial expression or body language.

But as they proceeded down the staircase for the official welcome by Vietnamese officials, Mrs Brigitte refused to hold Mr Macron’s hand offered to her. 

The French president and his office tried to downplay the incident on Monday despite a viral video clip, which promoted particularly the accounts that are habitually hostile to the French leader.

Mr Macron said his wife had just been joking around, describing the video clip circulated online as overblown. 

“We are horsing around and, really, joking with my wife. It becomes a sort of geo-planetary catastrophe,” he said. 

A close associate of the president earlier described the incident as a couple’s harmless “squabble.”

A source in the entourage of the French president also played down the significance of the incident.

“It was a moment when the president and his wife were decompressing one last time before the start of the trip by joking around. 

“It’s a moment of togetherness. No more was needed to feed the mills of the conspiracy theorists,” he said.

He also blamed pro-Russian accounts for negative comments about the incident.

In 2007, Mr Macron married his wife after they met when he was still in high school while Mrs Brigitte was a teacher.